January 26, 1861, The New York Herald
The seizure by the local authorities of Georgia of the United States Arsenal at Augusta, with its store of arms, adds but another to the numerous proceedings of a similar character which have placed all the seceded States in the attitude of undeniable revolution against the general government of the Union. At the same time the Conventions, Legislatures and people of said States are steadily and harmoniously progressing to a Southern confederacy. A general Convention of the cotton States will meet at Montgomery, Alabama, on the 4th of February, for the purpose of organizing their general government, and, with some modifications it is understood that they will adopt the federal system embraced in the constitution of the United States. We may thus safely predict, that in advance of the day of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, a southern confederacy will be organized, comprehending the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and, perhaps, several others, all banded together as a unit for Southern independence.
The first difficulty, therefore, that will present itself to President Lincoln, as the officer charged with the execution of the laws of the United States, will be their execution within the limits of the seceded States. To meet the requisitions of the law he must restore to his government the possession of the various forts, arsenals, navy yards, &c. seized and held in the seceded States as State property under the law of revolution. How is this to be done? We are answered that it will be done through enforcement of the laws. Fleets and armies are to be employed, and the seceded States, like rebellious provinces, are to be subjugated by the strong arm of federal power. It is granted that the regular army and navy of the Union will be unequal to this task; but it is supposed by the republican party that, in a call upon the militia the Northern States will furnish any number of troops that may be demanded by the President to assist him in the execution of the laws. Such, fairly stated is the program resolved upon by the incoming administration and the party supporting it.
Let us briefly consider the probable consequences of this policy. Several federal forts at Charleston are occupied by the revolutionists. They must be dispossessed. Accordingly a fleet of armed vessels and transports bearing an army are despatched to Charleston. The forts in question are recovered. But what then? The war has been commenced, in anticipation of when, not only the States of the Southern confederacy, but all the other slave States stand pledged to make common cause with South Carolina against this policy of coercion. Thus it is apparent that any attempt by force of arms to reinstate the federal government in any United States fort, arsenal or dockyard, seized by any Southern State, will be the inauguration of a war in which all the military forces and resources of the South will be combined against the general government. The very first blow, then of coercion will involve Mr. Lincoln’s administration in a war for the subjugation of the South, an enterprise criminally foolish and utterly impracticable.
The Southern States, leaving out Maryland and Delaware, have a population close upon twelve millions. Of this aggregate over four millions are slaves and free blacks, the working agricultural element of the South. From the eight millions, more or less, of whites, a million of soldiers, in a great emergency, could be drawn. There would be no difficulty in raising from this white population a movable army of two hundred thousand able men. Could Mr. Lincoln’s new administration muster a sufficient fore to subdue this army of resistance? No. He might raise a larger army from the republican ranks of the North; but with their movement to the South the reign of chaos would most probably commence in the Northern States, in which event their exisiting general government would be utterly destroyed by contending factions in arms, and the south American system of republics would be fairly introduced amongst us.
The subjugation of the South into submission to the Union, is, then, out of the question. What then? We are next informed that the Southern States can be starved into submission; that they have not the resources of capabilities required to sustain a respectable independent government, and that it would not take a long time to convince them of their dependence upon the North for commercial facilities and domestic necessities which the South cannot supply. Here too, however, the organs and orators of the republican party are under a great delusion. All the agricultural staples produced in the North are produced in the South, in addition to the great staples peculiar to the southern States. The best materials employed by our ship and house builders, in the way of timber and lumber, are drawn from the South. In minerals and for manufacturing facilities the resources of the South are inexhaustible. In a word, if the Southern States were closed in from the rest of the world by a Chinese wall, they could, upon their own abounding resources, maintain themselves better than could the people of the same extent of territory in any other part of the earth.
Next as to the expenses of a Southern confederacy. They need not exceed, for a peace establishment, twenty millions a year, and an export duty of one cent per pound upon cotton will furnish that amount of money. Nor do we apprehend that there will be any difficulty as to the recognition of a Southern confederacy by England and France. Cotton will settle that question, if put to the test, in favor of the confederacy, and also in favor of European intervention, if necessary, for a recognition of Southern independence by the North. All these republican theories, therefore, of coercing or starving the South into submission are fallacious; and equally absurd is this on their idea of Southern poverty and helplessness. The simple truth is, that the upshot of this Southern revolution must be a reconstruction of the Union, upon the basis of positive securities to Southern institutions, or the separation of the Union into two confederacies, each resting upon its won peculiar system of labor, and each pursing its manifest destiny in its own way, subject only to their treaties with each other and the rest of the world, and to the general laws of nations.
Mr. Lincoln’s administration may come in too late to maintain or reconstruct the Union. If so, as peace is better than war, as law and order are better than political confusion and ruin, it is to be hoped he will incline to the recognition of a Southern confederacy rather than plunge the whole country into the anarchy of Mexico.